NEWS FLASH!

44TH WARSAW AUTUMN FESTIVAL

The 44th Festival took place from the 21st to the 29th of September 2001.
According to the Festival's artistic director, Tadeusz Wielecki, "the main composer exposed this year is Galina Ustwolskaya.
All of her symphonies will be presented: at the inaugural concert, the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Yuri
Simonov, will play the first symphony, for two solo voices and orchestra. The other four were performed by Jadwiga Rappé
(mezzo-soprano) and the orchestra of the Silesian Philharmonic, conducted by Jacek Blaszczyk, at Ustwolskaya's monographic
concert on September 26th. As part of the Dutch Polder, the Nieuw Ensemble will perform with the group Loos from Amsterdam,
and a new opera were premiered. The multimedia opera Tattooed Tongues by Martijn Padding with libretto by Friso Haverkamp
was commissioned by the "Warsaw Autumn", and is based on the work of Emmanuel Swedenborg."

Wielecki stated that the opera was a part of a larger project: "next year, two further operas commissioned by the Festival will be premiered - one by Barbara Zawadzka
(using texts by William Blake) and one by Osvaldas Balakauskas (based on poetry by Oscar Milosz).
Together, these three operas constitute a kind of metaphysical triptych, entitled The Land of Ulro and inspired by the
ideas of the Polish Nobel Prize laureate Czeslaw Milosz in his book of the same name, in which he describes the need
for an unorthodox spirituality. An innovation of the program this year was Continuum - a kind of marathon
where every composition was presented "autonomically" as it were - unrelated to the other works -
differently than in a normal concert situation. There were two events of this type. In terms of Polish music,
the most important event will certainly be the performance by the National Polish Radio Orchestra from Katowice,
during which it presented new pieces by leading middle-aged composers: Pawel Szymanski, Elzbieta Sikora and Eugeniusz Knapik."

NEWS:

FESTIVAL OF NEW OPERAS IN WARSAW

Polish Chamber Opera in Warsaw, directed by Stefan Sutkowski, closes its celebration of the 400th anniversary
of the emergence of the opera as a genre by taking stock of the form's most recent development in Poland. The festival of
Contemporary Polish Operas to be held this month in Warsaw, will feature world premieres of two operas, Baltazar by Zygmunt Krauze
and a new work by Zbigniew Rudzinski. In addition, the ensemble will perform Quo Vadis? by Bernadetta Matuszczak. The three composers
selected for this program belong to the same generation and have had ample experience with stage music. Matuszczak's compositional debut was
a stage piece "A Chamber Drama" and she continued to explore vocal-instrumental genres, including oratorio, in a series of compositions written
in her personal style of "musical ascetism." Krauze's chamber opera "The Star" and Rudzinski's chamber opera "The Mannequins" were both premiered
at the Grand Theater - National Opera in Warsaw. Both new works have been commissioned for the performances by the Polish Chamber Opera
which remains one of the leading creative forces in Polish musical life.

PADEREWSKI IN NEW YORK

A plaque honoring famed virtouso-pianist Ignacy Jan
Paderewski (1860-1941) has been unveiled at the Buckingham
Hotel on 57th Street in Manhattan for the second time. The
plaque had been placed there in 1991 in commemoration of the
100th anniversary of Paderewski's first recital in New York
in 1891. According to the 7 August issue of Nowy Dziennik the event
took place to commemorate Paderewski's last concert in New
York in 1939, which according to the New York Times was heard
on the radio by more than fifty million Americans and people
around the world. A special letter written for this occasion
by mayor Rudolf Giuliani pays homage to the Polish composer,
stressing his tremendous impact and input into the musical
life of America and New York. Paderewski was instrumental in
promoting the opening of Carnegie Hall in 1891. Buckingham
Hotel was Paderewski's official residence here in the U.S.
during his final years.

PADEREWSKI TRIBUTE IN NY: REMINDER

If you are in New York in November be sure to attend the
"Tribute to Paderewski" concert at Carnegie Hall sponsored by the Kosciuszko Foundation on November 4th at 2 p.m.
The Sinfonia Varsovia conducted by Jerzy Maksymiuk and artists Janusz Olejniczak (piano) and Anna Bajor (soprano)
will present an all-Polish program featuring the music of Paderewski, Chopin, Moniuszko, and Kilar. They are joined by the
Paderewski Festival Singers, a New York choir especially formed for this occasion under the direction of Jan Sporek.

Roman Markowicz, who writes for the Nowy Dziennik in New York
, reports on the 2001-2002 concert scene in New york which
begins with a "Rachmaninoff Revisited" series.

The Russian Philharmonic from St. Petersburg will perform in
December and March in which they will fill their programs
with only Russian works (Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich,
Stravinsky). He continues to report that the Polish National
Philharmonic under Kazimierz Kord which will appear in
concert at the Avery Fisher Hall on 17 Feb will also play
music by Russian composers (Tchaikovsky) along with Chopin's
Piano Concerto No. 2 featuring pianist Janusz Olejniczak. He
brings out the point that Russian orchestras have a very
ethnic loyalty, unlike Polish orchestras, who have been
criticized by American music critics for seemingly avoiding
the music of their compatriots.

Lutoslawski's Piano concerto is scheduled for Jan 10, 11, 12
and 15 with pianist Leif Ove Andsnes. There will be two
premieres of Krzysztof Penderecki's new works: 9 May, 2002
with pianist Emanuel Ax and the Philadelphia Orchestra under
Wolfgang Sawallisch and 12 May Penderecki's Sextet. In April
Marta The American Record Guideerich will play a Chopin Concerto and Krystian
Zimerman will appear at Carnegie Hall on 28 April.

LEONARDO AND THE SPLENDOR OF POLAND

The Milwaukee Art Museum in Wisconsin is currently preparing an exhibition of art from the Polish collections for the 2002/3 season.
The exhibition, entitled "Leonardo da Vinci and the Splendor of Poland" will be unveiled at the Milwaukee Art Museum in the Fall 2002.

The centerpiece
of the exhibition is Leondardo's Portrait of the Lady with the Ermine but the exhibition will be much larger than that - masterpieces by
western European and Polish painters will be featured. The Milwaukee's Symphony Orchestra will celebrate music by Polish composers through the 2002/03 season.
The exhibition will travel from Milwaukee (12 September - 24 November 2002) to Houston (8 December - 16 February 2003), and San Francisco (8 March - 18 May 2003).
It is a great undertaking and we congratulate the museum for this undertaking. Milwaukee Art Museum is located at 750 North Lincoln Memorial Drive. Milwaukee, Wisconsin
USA 53202. tel 414-224-3200; fax: 414-271-7588.

UKRAINA VIVA! FESTIVAL IN WROCLAW

For the first time Wroclaw is the site of a festival of Ukrainian culture, scheduled for 4-7 October 2001. The
festival includes of concerts of classical repertoire (Lvov virtuosi), early music (Piccard Third, Ricercare) and folk music (romances performed by Olga and Natalia
Pasiecznik), evenings of folk music and dance, films, exhibitions, lectures and addresses. The program also includes
a meeting with the prizewinners of the Polish-Ukrainian Reconcilliation Prize given by Pope John Paul II in Lvov.

SANGARE AND OMSKY IN LOS ANGELES

The first black Polish actor, Omar Sangare, and cellist Jakub Omsky devote the first half of October to a series of performances of a program
of Polish poetry and contemporary music for solo cello. The program, given in Santa Barbara (29 September), San Diego (7 October) and Los Angeles
(14 October), consists of poems by Wislawa Szymborska recited in Polish and English by Sangare, with music interludes provided by Omsky.

Sangare is a graduate of the WArsaw Theater Academy, winner of grants to study at The British American Drama Academy in Oxford, UK and a fellowship from the
Kosciuszko Foundation. He is currently a member of Studio Theater in Warsaw. He received an award "THe Best in Acting" from New York
International Fringe Festival in 1997. He currently works on a project based on Shakespeare's Othello, with Omsky who is one of the most interesting cellists
of his generation, a composer and improviser, as well as performer of a repertoire ranging from the classical to contemporary.